HD Kumaraswamy trips' on Siddaramaiah's loans

Bengaluru: Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy reportedly poured out his troubles to his party legislators at the  recent Janata Dal (S) Legislature Party meeting,  speaking of his inability to fulfill his  promise of waiving crop loans to the tune of around Rs 43,000 crore due to lack of resources.

He also lamented that many of the promises made in the JD(S) manifesto had remained unfulfilled under pressure from the Congress to give priority to its poll promises, say JD(S) sources. "Seeing the current financial position,  the CM has no option but to borrow  Rs 40, 000 crore to waive farmers loans pending with nationalised banks with the coming Lok Sabha elections approaching, " contended a JD(S) leader.

In his view, if Mr Kumaraswamy was given a free hand, he would  discontinue  many of the welfare schemes of the previous government, which were a drain on the exchequer. Thanks to these schemes the Siddaramaiah government had borrowed around Rs 1.6 lakh crore between 2013 and 2018, according to him.  

"When the coalition government took over, the state's financial position was in such bad shape that it's borrowing had touched around Rs 2.31 lakh crore as the  BJP government too had borrowed Rs 60,000 crore  from 2008 to 2013. Together,  the state's outstanding was around Rs 2.31 lakh crore," he said, adding,  "The CM does not have guts to discontinue the old welfare schemes fearing withdrawal of support to his six-month old government by the Congress. He is aware there has been no development in the last six months in the state due to the confusion over the survival of his government."